The guys from Man Overboard and their producer/manager Jesse Cannon were kind enough to invite me down to the studio while they tracked four brand new songs for a great interview. Zac, Mike, and I discussed their recent tours, response to Real Talk, the new tracks, Mike’s secret love for Hanson, and a lot more about future touring plans and another record. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Man Overboard?
I’m Zac and I play guitar and sing in Man Overboard.
 
So, Real Talk was released about 5 months ago. Sitting here now, what’s the total reception been like in your mind?
It’s been really good. We’ve been really happy about it. Honestly, I was nervous and I don’t know for sure, we haven’t seen any numbers, or how much it sold or how much it sold in different places, but all I’ve heard about it is that people like it and stuff. People come up to me, way more than I thought would ever happen, and tell me they like Real Talk. At least, for me personally, it went over well. I feel really good about it now.
 
Is it kind of mind-blowing just how important this release has been to so many?
I was talking about this to someone, I like to think that it’s the best thing we ever did. I read on Tumblr the other day…some girl said she really likes Man Overboard, but hates Real Talk, and it’s like whatever, it didn’t ruin my day or anything, but that’s the opposite of what you go for every time. I’m starting to realize how dudes in bands I like, growing up, were looking at it and I didn’t realize it then, but you always want the think that you did most recently to be the best and I think that, especially with Real Talk, it was even more so because we had all these EPs and shit and we had no full-length. I wanted it to be a good one. I didn’t want it to be like, “Oh, the Man Overboard full-length’s finally out and it’s not as good as fucking good as all the fucking three song EPs they have.” So, I was nervous, but I think it’s been received well.
 
From late summer through the early fall the band toured with Fireworks, The Swellers, and Transit. That was one extremely long tour, but how did the fans respond night in to night out in terms of the newer material?
Really well. We were nervous. I remember the beginning of the tour, the set had a lot more of the like “The Real You” and it would be focused on more Before We Met Songs and stuff because Real Talk was so new we had only been playing “Fantasy Girl” and “World Favorite.” We were scared to play the other songs. We had confidence with the older songs. We knew that kids were gonna like it. We knew that we had seen kids sing along to the songs before. We were really nervous about Real Talk songs, but then a couple weeks into the tour we noticed that we would play “Dreaming” or something and no one would no the words, which was so weird to us. And then we played “Septemberism” and we got a really good reaction. Then we were like shit, that went over really well. They knew Real Talk; we were scared that they wouldn’t latch on, but those ended up being the most popular songs of the set every night.
POZ: How was that tour in general for you guys?
Zac: Amazing. It was a great time. We’ve all known Transit since we were teenagers, but we didn’t know Fireworks and we didn’t know The Swellers. By the end, you could mix and match any person, or the vans could all be random, or you could see anybody from any other band go into like the liquor store or the bar or Walmart with anybody. Everybody was an interchangeable group of friends. We were like a really well oiled machine. I went back to Michigan, because my girlfriend lives there, and all the Fireworks guys and Chris, who did merch for The Swellers, were all coming out to hangout with me. I think everybody that was on that tour ended up being like a little family for the rest of time. We’ll always have that epic-ass adventure that we shared together. I was in nothing but short shorts and 100 degree weather with those guys and I was also in like 20 degree weather wearing my Northface on the same tour. We went everywhere together.
 
That was followed up by a short run with You, Me And Everyone We Know. Did that go okay as well?
Yeah, they’re fun dudes, for sure. It was cool to tour with a band that wasn’t in the Run For Cover/No Sleep scene and be able to play to kids that didn’t really know who Title Fight were or Run For Cover Records was, but still were fans of music and bought CDs and spent money on t-shirts. That was cool to kind of poke our heads out of our world for a bit.
 
The reason we’re all here right now is because you guys are in Jesse Cannons studio recording a few new songs just months after Real Talk’s release. What prompted such a fast return to the studio?
We’re never sure. Mike just joined. Our guitarist, Wayne, quit during the Fireworks tour, so our drummer, Justin, became our guitar player and then we got our old friend Mike. He was the drummer in me and Justin and Wayne’s old band and kind of someone I wanted to be doing this with all along. So we finally got him involved and we wanted to have Mike some songs to call his own. The other part of it is that we’re exploring our options. If there’s somebody cool that wants to do a split with us maybe, we’d like to maybe use these songs for that or maybe just do another EP, but I think a lot of the positive things people have said about Man Overboard have had to do with us having a lot of material and I don’t want to let up on that. We’re trying to just be relentless.
 
When were these tracks written?
Two of them are old. One of them I wrote when I was like 17, one of them about a year ago, and one of them is a cover, and one of them I wrote like three days ago.
POZ: So it’s four in total?
Zac: Yeah.
 
How would you compare them to the material on Real Talk?
I think some of it’s a little more light hearted then Real Talk, less serious. I think another song is just faster then anything you’d hear on Rea Talk – More like old New Found Glory and stuff. And the other one sound likes it could have been on Real Talk.  A lot of the songs on Real Talk I wrote so close to recording it that I’m still kind of in the same place as a songwriter and our shit kind of still sounds the same. I haven’t really evolved, I don’t really think at all, or not that much since then.
 
When’s the latest you’d like to have it out by?
I guess as soon as possible. As soon as we figure out what we really want to do with it.
POZ: First months of the New Year?
Zac: Yeah, I think by then we’ll at least know what this is going to be called and when it’ll be available. All those details.
 
The band announced a few dates with H2O in early December. How did those shows come together and how stoked are you guys for that?
I’m very stoked. Me and Mike have a saying and it’s like, “It’s one to add to the trophy case.” The New Found Glory shows were something to add to the trophy case and I think H2O especially, because it’s a band that we liked when we were younger, but we all felt that we were starting a band that was way more poppy and corny and commercial. And we were like, well, we’re going to kind of sell our punk-rock ideas, but we’re going to try to be a real successful band. Then we turned around and we get to go on tour with one of the punk-rock bands. Everything’s happening. Wisdom In Chains is another band on that tour and are a great hardcore band from Pennsylvania. I personally am excited to get to tour with bands I care about when I was younger and bands that are closer to the things I actually listen to, which is a lot of like hardcore and metal. It’s like 1/10^th of a dream come true.
 
Shortly after you guys are headed out on a big European tour with Transit and All Or Nothing. Looking forward to a change of scenery?
Yeah, very excited about it to be honest. What about you Mike?
Mike: I think it’s going to be cool. Touring with Transit is something that we’re used to.
Zac: That’s why it’s going to be great.
Mike: It’s a new environment, but at the same time, friendly faces.
Zac: We’re going to Europe with 13 people that we’ve been friends with for the past six years. We’re all going to be sitting on the plane with each other and I’m probably going to be sitting with Transit a lot and people from Transit will probably be with us a lot. I’m just looking at it like a vacation with my friends and on top of that we’ll see how many people like our bands in Europe.
Mike: It’s a sweet adventure.
Zac: Don’t get lost or get taken by crazy hostiles and get stolen and sold to slavery,
Mike: Who would buy us?
Zac: Somebody…for bad things.
 
In many interviews it has been stated that a new album is a possibility for the New Year. Is that still the plan?
Zac: That’s my plan. It’s ideal. A lot of people have been trying to set up this tour and that tour of the New Year, which is something we never want to pass up, but it’s definitely in our sites before the summer of 2011. I hope to have a lot work done by then for the next full-length.
POZ: So would a late summer release be possible?
Zac: That would be cool. That’d be what we’re aiming for. Could always be like this time next year, but I don’t just think it’ll be like no new songs till then. Like, this thing that we’re recording right now or a Christmas thing or something. We’ll do something.
POZ: Do you guys have any Christmas stuff lined up?
Zac: We made this song a lot time ago called “Decemberism” and we would like to make a good recording of it. Nik has his own recording studio, but we didn’t even make our demo there. We made it at a like real crappy studio and we really like this song a lot and we were talking about how we wanted to write a Christmas song, and then we were like, “Wait, that’s our Christmas song,” you know what I mean? We’ll make a really good version of it, and then every year we have a Christmas song. We don’t want to make a holiday record, but we have that one song.
Mike: We could do like Hanson did.
Zac: Yeah, Snowed In.
Mike: I’ve got no shame.
Zac: I have shame in Snowed In.
Mike: They made me want to decide that I want to be in a band, honestly.
[Everyone Laughs]
Mike: Dude, I was in like 3^rd grade and I was like, “God, this rules. These kids are like three years older than me and they’re famous as hell and they get to live the life.”
 
Will you guys just continue writing after this?
Zac: Yeah, writing’s weird. It’s hard to say when it’s going to happen. I go through like six months of no songs and then in two days I’ll write five. A lot of times, Justin, our guitar player, is the person that I’ll talk to and tell him that I haven’t written a song in forever and…
Mike: I can’t believe I just said that about Hanson…
Zac: Justin will be like…
Mike: TMI Tuesday dog, for real.
Zac: Justin’s always the one to reassure me we’ll have enough songs. It’s true. That’s the beauty of having a shit load of songs that we’ve scrapped. Not that we’re super keen on going back to ideas that we scrapped before, but songs happen. They happen. Everything from Real Talk was written over like, five years. Some of it right before we recorded, some so long ago.
 
Should we be on the lookout for tour dates in the early New Year as well?
Zac: Nothing is solidly booked for the New Year. We’re just kind of talking to a bunch of different people. The only things that we have confirmed are Rufio in Japan and H2O.
POZ: How stoked are you to head over to Japan?
Mike: Oh my god. That’s way crazy. Not that going to Europe isn’t crazy, but…
Zac: That we’re going to Japan. Especially that we’re going with a band that he and I literally used to sit in our car, smoke weed, and listen to.
Mike: I made a video in my film class in high school where me and him were driving around and listening to Rufio in my car.
Zac: The other weird thing is that I remember being a sophomore and in the morning show, like that you watched in TV on the TV club or whatever, they used for the theme song they used “Above Me” by Rufio and the kids in my neighborhood told me they used “Love Your Friends Die Laughing” this past year, so I was like, “Wow, things have kind of come full circle.”
POZ: We might see some dates though?
Zac: You’ll definitely see something. I’m not trying to say anything for sure. There are some things up in the air. There are things up in the air and we’ll probably try to do something with The Wonder Years at some point in 2011, I don’t know when, but we always like touring with them. We’ re going to try to do the same thing with You, Me And Everyone We know; tour with some bigger bands that we’ve never been around before and see what we can learn from them. I just want to go on tour with blink and New Found Glory. That’d make my life. I stayed up all night last night and watched videos of Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus on YouTube. I was watching them talk to New Found Glory in 2001 and I was looking at Chad, like I talked to that dude a month ago and he’s talking to Tom DeLonge! My whole goal with this band is just to be friends with blink. That’s really it. That’s the only reason why we’re in this band; we want to be friends with blink. Everything’s just an uphill battle till Tom DeLonge calls me at 12:30 in the afternoon everyday and see if I want to smoke.
 
Thank you guys so much for your time; is there anything else you’d like to add?
Zac: Tigers Jaw, Two Worlds – Buy that on Run For Cover Records. Type up on Google, “Shotgun Bang Myspace” and whatever comes up go to that. Their new shit is unreal. The kid who played drums for us before Mike filled in on the Fireworks tour was amazing. I just last night sung on the new Handguns record, so check that shit out. Balance & Composure’s on tour with Senses Fail, I miss you both.